Walnut Cake

Wishing my husband a very happy birthday today! I have been making hubby a different BDay cake every year for the past 10 years or so now. This year I wanted to try a walnut cake. It all started from a picture I saw on Lissa’s blog, she always inspires me! From there I created my own recipe. The only things I kept the same were the whipped cream frosting and the decorations with ground walnuts and caramelized walnuts.

Time: 80 min, Prep: 30 min. Cook: 50 min + chilling time
Servings: 16-18

Ingredients:

For cake:

8 eggs
45 ml water (8 Tbsp)
240 g sugar
4 Tbsp ground walnuts
1 pouch vanilla sugar
220 g all-purpose flour, sifted

For filling:

500 ml whipping cream
300 g white chocolate chips or grated chocolate
14 g gelatin
2 Tbsp rum extract
200 g ground walnuts

For frosting:

500 ml whipping cream
4-5 Tbsp sugar

For syrup to moisten cake:

250 ml water
6 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp rum extract

Directions:

Cake:

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).

Beat egg whites and water with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Add sugar and vanilla sugar and beat until dissolved. Fold in the egg yolks.

Carefully blend in the flour and the ground walnuts.

Grease and flour your pan. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until brown (you can insert a toothpick in the centre and if it comes out clean then it’s ready). I have used a 24.5 x 9 cm (9.6 x 3.5 inches) springform pan.

Remove from the oven and loosen the cake from the pan with a knife. Invert it onto a wire rack or on a parchment paper sprinkled with sugar.

Filling:

Soften the gelatin in a few tablespoons of warm (not hot) water and then dissolve over hot water (I placed the bowl with gelatin in a bigger one that had hot water). Bring the whipping cream to boil in a saucepan. Add grated white chocolate and stir until smooth. Add the gelatin. Chill until cold, at least 2 hours or overnight (cover before refrigerating).

Using an electric mixer beat on low speed until blended and smooth. Add rum extract. Increase speed to medium-high; beat until mixture is thick and medium-firm peaks form when beaters are lifted.

Syrup:

For the syrup, combine water and sugar and stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Add rum extract and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and let it cool.

Assembling the cake:

Cut the cake horizontally in three.

Place the first layer on your cake platter and moist it with sugar syrup. Using a spatula, evenly cover the top of the first layer with a few generous tablespoons of filling. Place the next layer of cake, moist it with sugar syrup and top with filling. Repeat until you are done with all your layers.

Spoon about a cup of the walnut cream on top of the cake and using a spatula spread it evenly on the top and sides of the cake. This is called the crumb frosting and it’s meant to seal in all the cake crumbs and prepare the cake for its final layer of frosting.

Make the whipped cream. I added some sugar as well since my whipping cream was unsweetened.

Spread the whipping cream as evenly as possible and decorate with ground walnuts.